Wattisfield is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Mid Suffolk Mid Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England. Its council was based in Needham Market until late 2017, and is currently sharing offices with the Suffolk County Council in Ipswich. The largest town of Mid Suffolk is Stowmarket. ...

district of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Located on the A143 around seven miles south-west of Diss, in 2005 its population was 440, increasing to 475 at the 2011 Census. The village name in Domesday Book is Watesfelda, derived from the Old English meaning Wastel's clearing. It is situated in the ancient hundred of Blackbourne. Its medieval church is dedicated to St. Margaret. Due to the abundant source of mica clay the village has a tradition of pottery making going back to the Bronze Age and there is still a commercial pottery called Watsons which has a factory shop open to the public. A Romano-British or Anglo-Saxon cemetery was found in 1934 by

Basil Brown Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of th ...

, who later rose to fame for his discoveries at

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

. The village once had three licensed pubs but now it has none. The Royal Oak was part of Whitbread's pub estate but closed in 1968 and was sold on as a private dwelling, which it remains today directly opposite the church of St. Margaret's. The white post outside the building is a vestige of the old pub sign which used to hang from it. The White Swan was built in the 17th century and closed early 20th century; the building remains as a farmhouse to the north of the A143. The Black Swan closed in the 1920s but the building remains as a private dwelling on the south of the A143 near its junction with Calkewood Lane. A post-Medieval post mill stood near Manning's Lane; it was demolished circa 1965. The Post Office and general store closed in 1997 and the building is currently occupied by a ladies hair stylist. A stream which rises to the south of the village is called The Grundle and is one of the tributaries of the Little Ouse river which eventually joins the Great Ouse and discharges into

The Wash The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk, England, Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it i ...

. Several dates during the summer months see motocross scrambling action in the grounds of Wattisfield Hall.

References

External links

Wattisfield Community Centre & Recreation Ground websiteParish Council websiteWattisfield Church
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District